Ghanaian Times

The Ghanaian Times in a story headlined: "Kumasi thrown into state of mourning", reports that Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti Region, has been gripped with shock and grief, culminating in a state of mourning. The paper says the people are mourning the death of the Asantehene, Otumfuo Opoku Ware II, who passed away last Thursday. According to the paper, those who had heard of his death on that day, became saddened and sympathised with the royal family, but those who did not hear about the death went about their business as usual. The Times says the following day when the sad news spread like bushfire, people started to wear mourning cloth, the Manhyia Palace, the seat of the Asantehene, was very quiet and the guards there remained tight-lipped. The paper says Otumduo Opoku Ware's death is a great loss to the Asante kingdom, which celebrated the silver jubilee of his reign in September, 1995.

In another front page story the Times says the queeenmother of Dormaa Traditional Area, Nana Akosua Ansoaa, is reported dead. She is said to have died on Saturday at a Kumasi hospital to which she was rushed after allegedly slashing herself with a knife in a suicide attempt, last Monday. Last Friday the paper reported that Nana Ansoaa had slashed herself many times with a bread knife after she heard that the kingmakers would not support her nomination of her son as the successor to the late Omanhene, Nana Agyeman Badu. She is said to have been first rushed to a hospital at Dormaa Ahenkro for emergency treatment and then transferred to Kumasi.